A physical impact to the head of a person may cause serious injury or death. To reduce the probability of such consequences, protective gear, such as a helmet, is often used in activities that are associated with an increased level of risk for a head injury. Examples of such activities include, but are not limited to, skiing, snowboarding, bicycling, rollerblading, rock climbing, skate boarding, and motorcycling. In general, a helmet is designed to maintain its structural integrity and stay secured to the head of a wearer during an impact.
Accordingly, a bicycle helmet is designed to protect the cyclist's (or wearer's) head, including to absorb and dissipate energy during an impact with a surface, such as the ground. In this regard, most bicycle helmets are designed only to withstand a single major impact, and to thereafter be replaced with a new helmet. Bicycle helmet interiors include impact attenuating materials such as an arrangement of padding and/or foam, wherein the impact attenuating materials cover and contact a significant extent of the wearer's head. In this manner, the impact attenuating materials directly or intimately contact the wearer's head, however, this arrangement can result in undesirable heat build-up and/or retention when the helmet is worn during the sporting activity. The heat build-up and/or heat retention is exacerbated in a variety of conditions, such as when the cyclist is participating in a race or training session in a warm environment.
Some bicycle helmets seek to reduce heat retention by providing openings and channels in the helmet shell and the impact attenuating materials. The openings and channels are configured to promote air movement over portions of the wearer's head. For example, a conventional helmet sold by Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc. includes a front inlet formed in the helmet shell and configured to provide for flow of inlet air onto and over the wearer's forehead. Channels are provided over and around a crown area of the head, and a rear port communicating with the channels discharges air flow supplied by the front inlet through the channels while the wearer moves in a forward direction relative to the ground. However, the impact attenuating material of this conventional helmet directly contacts the wearer's head.
The conventional helmet suffers from a number of limitations including reduced structural integrity of the helmet shell due to the front inlet and the rear port. The reduced structural integrity also impacts the helmet's protection factor. Also, ventilating the helmet by providing a collection of openings and channels in the helmet shell increases aerodynamic drag of the helmet while the wearer moves in a forward direction, such as during a race or training session. What is needed is a protective bicycle helmet that does not rely exclusively upon a collection of openings, including inlets and ports, formed in the helmet shell to provide ventilation and facilitate air movement over a wearer's head within the helmet.
The present invention is provided to solve these limitations and to provide advantages and aspects not provided by conventional bicycle helmets. A full discussion of the features and advantages of the present invention is deferred to the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.